The fate of Chapman's Landing, the brazen plan in Charles County to build
a town of 12,000 along the Potomac River, should be understood and remembered.

Gov. Parris Glendening has taken the ball handed him by environmental
advocates and promised a court fight to block the massive, 4,600 home development
engineered by one of the world's richest men.

The proposed town with offices and shops still might be if the rescue
effort fails. But the way it looks, Glendening may have stepped in at the
right time with a $30 million pot of state money to turn this prized acreage
into a park and nature preserve. He's also threatened eminent domain to
seize the land for the state.

This was an important turn of events that should please Marylanders.
Maryland is short of state parks and public waterfront to begin with. And
the scope of this proposal was way out of bounds.

This 2,250-acre jewel of the Chesapeake region would have come under
the domain of Kjell Inge Rokke of Norway. He is called "Fisher King"
because he operates factory trawlers around the world, one of the reasons
that global fishing stocks have plummeted to dangerous lows in recent years.

Maryland could not sit back and permit Mattawoman Creek - one of the
state's prized fisheries - and all of this spectacular acreage to be degraded
by a rapacious development under the control of foreign interests indifferent
to sustainability.

Yet Glendening is taking a political risk. Many in Charles County support
the proposal because of the economic bonanza it would bring. Others may
resent the state's intrusion or the cost. Still others, among them the permanent
class of Glendening's detractors, won't give him the credit he deserves.

One way to look at it is to think of who, among the gubernatorial wannabes
in Maryland, would have saved this land. Would Republican aspirant Ellen
Sauerbrey have stepped in? Doesn't sound like her cup of tea.

How about Democratic hopeful Eileen M. Rehrmann, the Howard County executive
who is kicking up a lot of dust? Unlikely because she hasn't been willing
to protect parcels in her own county.

For Glendening, the political calculus may be a bit hard to figure. That's
okay; he's doing the right thing.